No matter how hard you try and fight it, 2010 will be remembered as Franzen’s year. Freedom is the book that everybody talked about whether they were hating on it, or planning on making it the only book they were going to read. Whether it be Oprah embracing him after his public shunning of her endorsement for The Corrections, or Lev Grossman’s profile on him making the cover of Time (we talked to Grossman about that here), Franzen left his stamp on all 365 days of the year that was.

We liked Franzen just as much as the next guy, but there were ten works of fiction we liked a whole lot more.

1. The Instructions by Adam Levin (McSweeney’s)

We loved The Instructions for reasons beyond the fact that it was over a thousand pages. Levin’s book is #1 on our list because it’s a debut novel that was epic, ambitious and a hell of a lot of fun to read.

An ex-con attempting to adjust to post-prison life becomesthe nanny to a two-and-a-half-year-old. We have to admit that we were lured in by the tag of “wickedly nihilistic,” but were sold by the time the book was closed.

Also of note:Witz by Joshua Cohen, Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, A Visit From the GoonSquad by Jennifer Egan